Chrono Trigger: The Kershan saga
by Wing Omega
Summary: What Chrono Trigger might have been like if one of the surviving members of a species believed to be dead was along for the adventure. The T rating is just in case
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: I do not own Chrono Trigger or any other copyrights.

Guardian Dictionary 630 A.D Edition

Kershan- A Mystic/Human hybrid. No one knows when the first Kershan was born but by 350 A.D. several small villages were scattered through out Guardia but by 560 A.D. these villages had merged into one city near what was known as the Mystic Mountains. Kershan did not have surnames. Kershan appeared mostly human but some Kershan had physical differences from humans and all possessed magic. Like Mystic eyes Kershan eyes were sensitive to bright light so they compensated by wearing a special form of glasses. While Kershan skin was not as sensitive to sunburn as Mystic skin, the Kershan didn't share the Mystic immunity to colds or pneumonia. Kershan also have a enhanced sense of smell that they can use to identify each other. Most of the Kershan stayed neutral during the Human/Mystic war at the end of the sixth century but two of Magus's lieutenants, Slash and Flea, were Kershan and legend has it that Magus himself was a Kershan. After the war humans turned against the Kershan for not doing more or for revenge for the actions of Flea, Slash and Magus. By 602 A.D. the Kershan gathered what ships they could and left Guardia to move to the Medinaian continent. Many of the Mystics blamed the Kershan for not helping them during the war and on August 9th 602 A.D. The remaining Mystic forces ambushed and destroyed the Kershan fleet rendering the Kershan extinct. There were four classes of Kershan each named after the magic elemental they wielded.

Fire- The second most common class of Kershan. Fires of Kershan appeared human except for their glowing red eyes. Their eyes were more sensitive to light then those of other Kershan so they wore goggles instead of the glasses favored by other Kershan.. They were faster and stronger then normal humans. Legend has it that some of the Fires could move so fast that they appeared to blur.

Lighting-The least common class of the Kershan, with maybe 8 born per generation at the peak of the Kershan species. Lightnings appeared human but had two additional structures hidden inside each of their arms. The lower was larger, about 3 feet long and shaped like a blade and is used for climbing or combat. It is believed that this structure folds in half when not in use. The second extended outward from the shoulders and functioned in a method similar to a hummingbird's wing allowing for flight and gliding. To aid in flying Lightings had reflexes far superior to the best human reflexes. Ancient legend says that Lightnings may have had some influence over time itself though there is no proof of this.

Shadow- The second rarest class of Kershan, Shadows appeared human but they had the ability to alter their form and to confuse the minds of their enemies, often resulting in their enemies attacking each other. Other Kershan are immune to this magic.

Water- The most common class of Kershan. Waters appear human except for their light blue hair. They are the closet class to humans as they have no non-human abilities except their magic and the various immunities and sensitivity to bright light common to all Kershan.

Author's notes

1: The parts about sensitivity to bright light, and Mystic sensitivity to sunburn and immunity to colds and pneumonia are my attempt to explain the sad sunny day and dreadful bright place part in the Mystic tribute song to Magus.

2: I'm trying to decide when the main character is going to reveal that he is a Kershan. I've narrowed it down to the first fight with Slash, the first fight with Flea, or the fight with Magus. So if you have a preference please tell me in a review.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I own no copyrights.

Kershan Saga Chapter 1

Truce 994 A.D.

James wandered aimlessly around Truce. It had been two weeks since he and his mother had arrived, quite possibly the last two Kershan remaining on the planet despite his mind insisting that there must be others. He closed his eyes and remembered the image of his home, the endless lessons about how to be a proper Lighting, the things they didn't teach you like the fact that being a Lighting meant that every unmarried/unattached female Kershan between the ages of 9 and 32 would be constantly flirting with you. He frowned as he remembered the utterly dull council meetings that the adults forced you to attend because "you're going to be part of the council one day. It's your destiny." "Like I ever believed in destiny", He thought with a touch of bitterness.

He smiled, remembering the times he wanted nothing more then for the girls and his other friends to leave him alone so he could read and think in peace. They rarely listened but when he was six he had mastered the art of flying and reading at the same time though it greatly slowed his reading speed and he could only fly a few hours at a stretch. When things got really bad he would pack a book or two, some food, and a blanket and fly off to one of five secluded spots where he had rigged lean-tos or found a good cave, and camp out for a night or two.

His birthday parties were literally the biggest parties in the village's history. He had been the first Lighting born in over one hundred years and the other Kershan had seen him as proof that their people would survive. His mother was an author and poet so she had always given him a copy of her latest work for his birthday. The afternoon after the party he would go on a trip to one of his sanctuaries to read it and relax a little.

James began frowning again as he realized where these memories were leading him. His tenth birthday had gone as usual, his mom had finished a new poetry book so the next day he had left for the night. When he got back his uncle was waiting to chew him out because the council was holding an emergency session and they were running late. For once the meeting had actually been interesting. The council had decided to end the village's self-imposed exile from the rest of the world and they were debating whether to contact the humans first, the mystics first, or try to contact both groups at the same time. James had hoped that they would contact the humans first since the mystic capacity to hold a grudge was legendary. When he was 8 or 9 he had wished that the council would make a mistake so he could laugh at them and rub in it for the rest of their lives.

He should have been careful what he wished for because by the time anyone knew that the council's mistake had been a mistake he wasn't laughing, and they weren't breathing. The Mystics hit the village at dawn just under two weeks after the ambassadors to Medina had left. The Kershan managed to repel the first assault but it was clear that they would eventually be overrun by sheer force of numbers so the decision was made to abandon the village and run to the Zenan Continent. James and his mother had been placed on a mid-sized ship captained by his uncle with 3 other families and some treasure and artifacts. The Imps had attacked about halfway through the journey and the ships that had survived the first wave were scattered. The Imps had chased the ship James and his mother were on until they were within sight of Zenan and what was left of the ship had crashed about half a day west of Truce. James and his mother were the only survivors so they salvaged everything they could and burned the bodies and set up a wooden marker from some of the hull material in their best improvisation of a Kershan funeral.

Then they had traveled to Truce where they had bought a small house and after two weeks his mother had booted him out with orders not to return until he had at least one human friend. Which left him wondering Truce when he heard an explosion and saw a thin cloud of smoke rising from a nearby alley. Worried that this might mean that, against all logic, the Mystics had either tracked him and his mother here and decided to launch a direct assault to finish them off or had picked now to start a new war with humanity he ran toward the source of the explosion. As he turned the corner into the alley he felt himself crash into something and as he barely managed to hold his balance he heard a small yelp and the sound of several metal objects hitting the walls and ground.

Author's notes

1: Sorry it took so long. I had planned to update all my stories on the same day but while I was on vacation my PC ate all of my work so I had to start over.

2: Most of this chapter covered the parts of James' life that he can't really talk about without revealing what he is. I might someday write a prequel that goes into more detail on his earlier life, but I have a lot of other story ideas ahead of it.

3: In case anyone didn't understand the ending James just literally had a run-in with Lucca. Originally this chapter was much longer and covered everything in the chapter plus the rest of his first meeting with Lucca, his first meeting with her family and the rest of the day until he goes to sleep that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Kershan Saga Chapter 2

Author's notes

1: Sorry it took so long but I've been under a lot of stress lately.

2: Italics indicate a character's thoughts.

After recovering from the impact James looked down to see whom he had hit. He found a girl wearing a helmet with a few strands of purple hair hanging out from it. She seemed to be looking for something so he knelt down beside her and asked her if she was all right. She looked toward him with a pair of pale blue eyes, "I can't find my glasses." she explained.

He looked around and noticed a pair of glasses laying a few inches beyond her reach. H reached over and picked them up, then placed them in one of her outstretched hands "Here you go." "Thank you." After she put her glasses back on she paused to look at him. "You're not from around here, are you?", she asked.

"No, I'm from Choras and I just moved here after my old house burned down." he replied sticking to the story his mother had worked out when they first arrived. "My name is James Pendragon," he added as he offered his hand to help her up. "I'm Lucca Ashtear, but you can call me Lucca the Great." She replied as she grabbed his hand and he began to pull her to her feet.

Unfortunately when her left foot hit the ground a lance of pain shot through it and her knee buckled, James barely had time to catch her before she fell again, "Well Miss The Great it appears you've injured your leg. How far is it to your house?' he asked with a amused grin "It's on an island a few miles south of town." "Do you have anywhere else in town you can stay the night?" "Normally I could stay with my friend Crono and his mother but they're visiting family in Porre, and no one else wants me to stay at their house so no."

"_I wonder why? She seems like a nice enough girl. If it's the island I think it is it'll be closer to take her home then to take her to my house. Still it will be dark long before we get there._" He thought. Out loud he said, "In that case we better get moving." He shifted her arm so that it stretched across his shoulder and let him bear most of her weight, which caused her to ask him what he was doing. "I'm helping you walk. Unless you would rather spend the rest of today and tonight crawling home that is."

After Lucca thanked him for offering to help her, the pair set off in the direction of Ashtear Island. About halfway to the island James asked a question that had been running through his mind since they had left the alley, "Lucca why were you in that alley anyway?"

"I was working on a robot to clean the house for my mother but it exploded." Her voice quavered slightly with the next words, "A lot of my inventions blow up, that's why people don't want me around their houses."

James could tell that she was starting to feel depressed so he decided to try to cheer her up, "Lucca without scientists and inventors all of humanity would still be in caves, eating raw meat and bugs with no hopes or dreams for the future." paraphrasing a book he had read when he was a child. "Sure you'll make mistakes but you'll learn from those mistakes and sometimes those mistakes might lead to you discovering something wonderful. I've read books that say that the person that discovered Tonics dropped some leaves into their canteen by mistake and then accidentally splashed some of the mixture onto a scratch on their hand. That mistake has saved thousands of lives so you shouldn't be upset because one of your mistakes could someday do the same. Besides if I hadn't heard that explosion we might have never met. So what do you like to do when you're not working on an invention?"

"Sometimes I go camping with Crono but not often, I read a lot and Crono and I talk while he's helping me find parts or practicing with his wooden katana, I tried to teach him chess but he didn't take to it very well. So what do you do when you're not wandering into alley science labs and escorting injured, great scientific geniuses home?" She asked him.

"I like to read a lot and my mom's an author and part of our family library survived the fire so that makes finding books to read a lot easier. I like to go camping alone sometimes when I want to relax or think without having to worry about interruptions. I also like practicing my swordplay and playing chess, so we'll have to try a game sometime. I did like hanging out with my friends but other then you I haven't met anyone my age around here so my mom decided to kick me out until I made some new friends. Which left me wandering Truce until we ran into each other."

By now the sun had set and the temperature was dropping fast so James paused for a minute to slip off his coat and offered it to Lucca. She stared at it for a moment. "Take it, I'm warm natured and you're injured so the last thing you need is to get sick from the cold." The rest of the trip was spent discussing books that they had both read.

About half an hour later the pair arrived at Lucca's house. James knocked on the door and opened it once he heard a voice tell them to come in. James knocked on the door and opened it once he heard a voice tell him to come in.

James and Lucca entered the house but there was no one in the front room. "Mom, Dad I'm home." Lucca called as they stepped inside. James hears some shuffling from the next room and a man covered in soot came into the front room. _"I'm guessing that this is Lucca's father and she appears to have picked up her skill at making things that go boom_ _from him." _ "Lucca are you okay?" he asked.

"I just hurt my ankle dad. This is James, he's new in town and offered to help me home."

The man turned to James "My name is Taben thank you for taking care of my daughter."

"It wasn't a problem the entire reason I was out there was because I was trying to find a new friend so everything worked out great."

At this point Taben went up a set of stairs to the right and opened a door "Lara Lucca's home and she brought a new friend." "Lucca why don't you introduce me to your new friend"? came from inside the room.

James entered the room behind Lucca and saw a woman sitting in a chair. Lucca turned to her, "Mom this is James Pendragon, James this is my mom." "Hello Mrs. Ashtear." James added. "Hello James, so how did you meet my daughter?

James and Lucca spent the next few minutes explaining how they had met that afternoon. After they had finished Lara turned to James "Thank you for helping Lucca home. You should spend the night here rather then trying to go home in the dark. James nodded even though he would have been fine going home in the dark. Lara then turned to Lucca "As for you young lady you need to be more careful, you're lucky that James was nearby when you got hurt and even luckier that he was nice enough to help you home". At this point James felt obligated to cut in and Lara turned toward him. "Mrs. Ashtear if I hadn't been in her way Lucca wouldn't have been hurt". Lara turned back to Lucca. "And he was nice enough to give you his coat despite how cold it is. (It was late fall and a cooler then usual year) he's been a perfect gentleman."

James had looked down and started blushing slightly. "More like a noble rogue." He murmured. He looked up to see Lucca and her mother staring at him with a slightly puzzled look in their eyes. "It's how an old friend used to describe me" he explained with a hint of sadness in his voice waving his right hand in the air (an old habit when he was nervous). Lucca and Lara both tried to cheer him up by saying that he might get to visit his old home soon or his friend might come to visit him."

A shadow passed over his face, "She died." He replied in a haunted voice. Lara and Lucca both started to apologize but he cut them off. "I'm getting tired if you don't mind I think I'd like to get some sleep" with the haunted tone still in his voice.

A few minutes later he was lying on the couch with a blanket and his coat which was serving as a pillow. "Good night Izumi." He whispered before closing the pendent which contained a photo of him and his best friend, one of only two color photos that James had his mother had from pre-attack. _I still can't believe she's gone. I'll never see her again. _He paused remembering how she would twirl her blue braid when she was thinking or the look of serenity in her green eyes when she had thought of a new idea for a painting or sketch. _Tomorrow would have been her birthday. I'm so sorry Izumi._ he thought with a silent sob before drifting off to a hopefully dreamless sleep.

James yawned and opened his eyes, it had been a long night trying to patch the holes in the compartment from the Imps and he had fallen asleep against the inner hull. His mother was snoring away to his left and Izumi was off to his right. He decided to wake Izumi up first since she got angry if anyone let her sleep too late. "Izumi it's time to wake up." he whispered not wanting to disturb his mother. When that didn't work he reached over and pushed on Izumi's shoulder. She toppled over with a thud and he saw a bloodied spear point sticking through the hull. He opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out.

The light in the compartment faded as Izumi's now glowing corpse rose from the floor. "Why did you let it happen James? You were supposed to save me. You promised you would protect me!" James's breath caught in his throat as he remembered that promise, made after he had told her about his bad feeling about the Kershan contacting Medina first and she had asked him if he really thought anything bad was going to happen. After a few seconds he managed to reply shakily, "I tried, I did everything I could." "No you didn't!" she screamed back. "You could have checked on me right after the attack ended. You couldn't even be bothered to take 10 seconds to make sure I was okay! "You could have told me not to sit against the hull but you didn't! So, what exactly did you do to protect me!"

James froze as he realized she was right, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to I just made a mistake! He cried almost incoherently. "You're sorry! I'm dead and all you can say is you're sorry! Do you really think you being sorry does me any good!" Izumi's ghost screamed, angrier then James ever remembered hearing her when she was alive. "Water!" James was knocked on his back by the spell. "Ice!" He rolled to the right in a feeble attempt to dodge.

"Ouch!" James awoke to find himself on the floor in the Ashtear family's living room, coated in a cold sweat. "Are you okay? You sounded like you were having a nightmare." Lucca asked him as he sat up. "I'm fine thanks for asking." He answered. "And believe me I deserve my nightmares." He added bitterly as he stood up, put his coat and glasses on, and glanced at a clock which revealed that it was 4:19 AM. "I doubt that." Lucca replied. "You went through a lot of trouble to help me home today. I don't see how anyone who would go that far for a stranger can deserve nightmares."

"I was dreaming about Izumi." He explained as he sat down a little to her left. "The girl you told me and mom about earlier?" "Yeah. She was telling me about all the things I could have done that might have saved her, and she was right. I didn't do any of them, she needed me and I completely failed her." He explained in a numb tone. "Some mistakes can't be unmade." Lucca replied sadly and guiltily, thinking about her mother. "You just have to make sure never to make that mistake again."

James could tell from her tone she was speaking from experience, though he had no idea what that experience was. Hoping to distract her he asked her what she was working on, and she explained that she was trying to figure out what went wrong with her cleaning robot. He asked if there was anything he could do to help, she told him there was, and they spent the rest of the early morning working.

End Notes

1: Again I'm really sorry this took so long

2: There was nothing romantic going on between James and Izumi but there would have been soon if the attack had never occurred.

3: As for dream/ghost Izumi's accusations the blow killed her instantly, and in the CT game universe James did talk her into moving away from the hull. When the Imp with the spear pulled it back in the game universe it ripped out enough of the hull that combined with the other holes the Imps could get inside the compartment and they killed everyone inside.

4: and this should be the end of most of the stories angst.


End file.
